Wan Azizah conspicuously absent from Pakatan Harapan meeting

On Monday, Pakatan Harapan held its first meeting with Pribumi as an official member in the office of the opposition leader in Parliament.

The only thing is the Opposition Leader Wan Azizah Wan Ismail herself was not present.

Instead she was admitted into hospital because of ‘intermittent high grade fever, nausea and recurrent vomiting’.

That, by any standards, would not be abnormal.

People do get sick and people do get admitted into hospital.

What would be abnormal would be for the doctor to issue a ‘To Whom It May Concern’ letter and for that letter to be viralled to all and sundry.

It appears like someone has gone to a lot of effort to impress upon us that Wan Azizah is really not well and needed to be hospitalised and hence that was the reason why she could not attend the Pakatan Harapan meeting in her office in Parliament yesterday.

These people are trying to “explain” Wan Azizah’s absence from the Pakatan Harapan meeting and are trying to convince us that her absence was “normal” and not because she was boycotting the meeting.

Wan Azizah herself said nothing, though.

Even Mahathir Mohamad has had to be hospitalised a number of times over just the last six months alone but the IJN doctors do not issue a ‘To Whom It May Concern’ letter and then viral it on the internet.

Hospital letter on Wan Azizah’s health condition.

The spin-doctors went out of their way to explain Wan Azizah’s absence from the meeting yesterday and attracted unnecessary attention to a matter that under normal circumstances would have been a non-event

The way they did it in Wan Azizah’s case yesterday seems like they went to great pains to make sure that the whole world knows she was admitted into hospital the day the Pakatan Harapan meeting was held in her office – and hence the suggestion that this was why she was absent from that meeting.

If they had not made a big deal about Wan Azizah being admitted into hospital, and if they had not gone out of their way to get the doctor to issue a letter, and if they had not viralled that letter, no one would have raised an eyebrow.

Even if some people found out, the most they would say was “so what?”

People get sick and get admitted into hospital and hence miss meetings all the time.

What’s the big deal?

Now, however, those behind this very amateurish spin have unwittingly turned into a big deal.

Now people want to know why they are going to great efforts to make sure we all know that Wan Azizah missed the meeting because she was unwell and got admitted into hospital.

Why is that so important for us to know?

Is it because she intentionally missed the meeting and used the ‘not well and entered hospital’ as the excuse?

If not why draw our attention to what can be considered a non-event?

Yesterday’s meeting was not an earth-shattering meeting.

It was just to discuss Pakatan Harapan’s application to register the coalition with Pribumi as the fourth coalition member.

So why did Wan Azizah not attend that meeting?

Why go to so much effort to try to explain her absence?

Pakatan Harapan leaders.

First of all, Muhyiddin Yassin wants a Malay party to lead Pakatan Harapan.

PKR is not a Malay party, Pribumi is.

PKR is a multi-racial party just like DAP – although the late MGG Pillai used to say PKR is a Malay-dominated multiracial party while DAP is a Chinese-dominated multiracial party.

Anyway, the long and short of it is, if Pakatan Harapan is to be led by a Malay party then that would be Pribumi.

That would also mean that in the Pakatan Harapan application to register the coalition, Pribumi’s nominee would have to be listed as the chairman.

This would most likely be Mahathir since he is also the chairman of Pribumi.

But Pribumi has just one seat in parliament (which it is going to lose in the next general election anyway) while DAP has 38.

So is this not a case of the tail wagging the dog?

Even PKR has 27 seats, far more than Pribumi.

Mahathir jailed Anwar Ibrahim and Wan Azizah will never forget it.

DAP has been around since 1965 and was formed two months after Singapore broke away from Malaysia – and is supposed to replace PAP in Malaysia – while the ink is not even dry yet on Pribumi’s registration certificate.

In short, Pakatan Harapan is merely an Ali Baba arrangement with DAP calling the shots and Pribumi giving an appearance it was in charge.

More importantly, PKR came into being on April 4, 1999 specifically as an anti-Mahathir party.

The purpose for the formation of PKR was to not only kick out Mahathir but to make sure that he paid for all his crimes and will spend the rest of his days on earth in prison.

Now Mahathir wants Wan Azizah to attend a meeting to endorse Mahathir as the ‘Ali Baba’ leader of the opposition and his party as the so-called leader of Pakatan Harapan?

Now the picture is beginning to emerge as to why Wan Azizah would rather go into hospital than attend yesterday’s meeting.

Wan Azizah knows that Mahathir will not back Anwar Ibrahim’s release from prison and, furthermore, Mahathir had not retracted what he said about Anwar – which was, Anwar was an immoral person not fit to lead the opposition or become prime minister.

This is precisely what Karpal Singh also said in 2008 when he said that Anwar had done so much damage to Malaysia and should taubat (repent) and that he was not fit to lead the opposition and Pakatan should look for a new leader and so on.

Even more important is the fact that Mahathir wanted Selangor Menteri Besar (MB) Azmin Ali to oust Wan Azizah and take over as PKR’s president.

How can Wan Azizah sit at the same table with a man, who wanted both her and her husband killed off?

If given a choice Wan Azizah would rather work with PAS than with DAP.

Azmin, too, is not prepared to divorce PAS because he knows he would never have become the Selangor MB if not because of PAS.

If the PAS president Abdul Hadi Awang has agreed to support DAP and PKR in challenging the authority of the Sultan of Selangor and if PAS had been prepared to trigger a constitutional crisis in Selangor by insisting that Khalid Ibrahim be replaced with Wan Azizah, then there would have been a 50:50 chance that today Wan Azizah and not Azmin would be the Selangor MB.

That is why Azmin does not dare divorce PAS and also why Wan Azizah has not totally closed the door on PAS yet.

The two people talking so much about PAS are Mahathir and Lim Kit Siang.

Wan Azizah, in fact, said nice things about PAS although she talks in the past tense about the time of Fadzil Muhammad Noor.

In short, Wan Azizah is implying she had no problem with the party itself.

Wan Azizah is a pious Muslim.

One thing about Wan Azizah is she is a pious Muslim.

She wears that white glove on her right hand because as a Muslim, she does not want to shake another man’s hand with her ‘naked’ hand.

Between PAS and an anti-Sharia party like DAP, without doubt she would choose PAS.

With Mahathir trying to call the shots and deciding what Pakatan Harapan does, Wan Azizah would rather not have anything to do with the opposition coalition.

But she cannot say that.

If she says she preferred PAS to DAP or Pribumi, she would be committing suicide.

Both Mahathir and Kit Siang would back Azmin and in the next PKR party election he would make a bid for the presidency and would most likely win.

That would be the end for her, her husband and her daughter.

So she is stuck between a rock and a hard place until she can figure out how to escape from the clutches of Mahathir, Kit Siang and Azmin.

In the meantime, she just absents herself from all meetings so that she does not have to commit herself to what she does not agree with. – Malaysia Today

BM

Malaysia Outlook is an online publication, incorporating news and analyses for "The Thinking Malaysian." This is in line with our aim to engage the younger generation in order to help build a thinking society. We also aim to dispel fake news and create awareness on the importance of good governance as well as to fight for truth and justice.

Contribute

Any events taking place that you think our team should cover? Send us your press invites, statements, releases, article ideas or letters to the editor at: